One President
"What are those, father?" "Statesmen, my child--Lacrymose, unparliamentary, wild."
"What are they that way for, father?" "Last fall,'Our candidate's better,' they said, 'than all!'"
"What did they say he was, father?" "A manBuilt on a straight incorruptible plan--Believing that none for an office would doUnless he were honest and capable too."
"Poor gentlemen--so disappointed!" "Yes, lad,That is the feeling that's driving them mad;They're weeping and wailing and gnashing becauseThey find that he's all that they said that he was."
Words in this poem
- unparliamentary a.
- Not parliamentary; contrary to the practice of parliamentary bodies.
- disappointed a.
- Defeated of expectation or hope; balked; as, a disappointed person or hope.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
One President is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, One President, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/one-president.html, id L28198.
Form and metre
One President is 12 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AA childA · wildA
- 2 AA fallA · allA
- 3 AABB manA · planA · doB · tooB
- 4 AABB ladA · madA · becauseB · wasB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "What are those, father?" "Statesmen, my child-- | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| Lacrymose, unparliamentary, wild." | 6 | ······ |
| "What are they that way for, father?" "Last fall, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| 'Our candidate's better,' they said, 'than all!'" | 10 | //˘˘/˘···· |
| "What did they say he was, father?" "A man | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| Built on a straight incorruptible plan-- | 10 | ····/˘˘˘˘· |
| Believing that none for an office would do | 11 | ˘/˘····/˘·· |
| Unless he were honest and capable too." | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| "Poor gentlemen--so disappointed!" "Yes, lad, | 10 | ·/˘··˘/˘·· |
| That is the feeling that's driving them mad; | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| They're weeping and wailing and gnashing because | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| They find that he's all that they said that he was." | 11 | ··········· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.